WHEN last I had seen Master Stokes the fisherman, in his bachelor condition, it was in the week when February ends and March begins, when the weather was as bluff and boisterous as his own bluff and boisterous self; when the velvet buds were just sprouting on the fallow, the tufted tassels hanging from the hazel, and the early violet and "rathe primrose" peeping timidly forth from sunny banks and sheltered crevices, as if still half afraid to brave the stormy sky.

The next time that I passed by the banks of the Kennet was in the lovely season which just precedes the merry month of May. The weather was soft and balmy, the sky bright above, the earth fair below; the turf by the road-side was powdered with daisies, the budding hedgerows gay with the white ochil, the pansy,

VOL. III.

and the wild geranium; the orchards hung with their own garlands of fruit-blossoms, waving over seas of golden daffodils; the coppices tapestried with pansies, groundivy, and wood-anemone, whilst patches of the delicate wood-sorrel were springing under the hollybrake and from the roots of old beech-trees; and the meadows were literally painted with cowslips, orchises, the brilliant flowers of the waterranunculus, the chequered fritillary, and the enamelled wild hyacinth. The river went dancing and sparkling along, giving back in all its freshness the tender green of the landscape, and the bright and sunny sky; birds were singing in every bush; bees and butterflies were on the wing, and myriads of water-insects added their pleasant sound to the general harmony of nature. It was Spring in all its loveliness,

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and never is Spring more lovely than in our Kennet meadows.

The Fisherman's hut did not disgrace the beauty of the picture. The white cottage, nested in the green bank, with its hanging garden full of stocks and wallflowers, its blooming orchard, and its thin wreath of gray smoke sailing up the precipitous hill, and lost amid the overhanging trees, looked like the very emblem of peace and comfort. Adam and his dog Neptune were standing in the boat, which Master Stokes's stout arm was pushing from shore with a long pole, nodding a farewell to his wife, and roaring at the top of his stentorian voice his favourite stave of "Rule Britannia;" Laurette, on her part, was seated at the open door of the cottage, trim as a bride, with her silk gown, her large earrings, her high comb, and her pretty apron, her dress contrasting strangely with her employment, which was no other than darning her husband's ponderous and unwieldy hose, but with a face radiant with happiness and gaiety, as her light and airy voice sung the light and airy burden of a song in high favour among the soubrettes of Paris.

C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour,
Qui fait le monde à la ronde,
Et chaque jour, à son tour,
Le monde fait l'amour.

"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour," came singing across the water in every pause of her husband's mighty and patriotic chant, mingled with the shrill notes of Ned, who was bird's-nesting on the hill-side, peeping into every furze-bush for the fine speckled eggs of the gray linnet, and whistling "Oh no, we never mention her" with all his might.

It was a curious combination, certainly, and yet one that seemed to me to give token of much happiness; and on questioning my friend Mrs. Talbot, the charming Queen of the Dahlias frankly admitted, that however it might turn out eventually, Laurette's match did at present appear to have produced more comfort to both parties than could have been anti

cipated from so preposterous a union. "Adam adores her," pursued Mrs. Talbot, "spends all the money he can come by in sailor-like finery, red ribbons, and yellow gowns, which Laurette has too good a wardrobe to need, and too much taste to wear; can't pass within a yard of her without a loving pinch of her pretty round cheek, and swears by every seaman's oath that ever was invented, that she's the neatest-built vessel, with the comeliest figurehead that ever was launched. And, incredible as it seems, Laurette loves him; delights in his rough kindness, his boldness, and his honesty; calls him still un brave garçon; enters into his humour; studies his comfort; has learnt more English during her six weeks marriage than in six years that she lived with me; and has even advanced so far as to approach, as nearly as a French tongue may do, to the pronunciation of her own name Stokesterrible trial to Gallic organs. In short," continued Mrs. Talbot, "of a very foolish thing, it has turned out better than might have been expected; Adam's adherents, Ned and Neptune, fairly idolize their new mistress; poor thing, her kindness, and good-nature, and gaiety, were most delightful; and Ned is, she assures me, a very handy boy about the house, does all the dirty work, dusts and scrubs, and washes, and cooks, and trots about in a pair of high pattens and a checked apron, just exactly like a maid of all-work. Í send Gilbert to her almost every day with one trifle or another, sometimes a basket of provisions, sometimes my reversionary flowers, (for Laurette can't live without flowers) and on the whole I really think she will do very well."

This account was most satisfactory; but happening again to pass Laurette's cottage in the bowery month of June, I saw cause to fear that a change had passed over the pretty Frenchwoman's prospects. Outwardly the picture was as bright, or brighter than ever. It was summer, gay, smiling summer. The hawthorn-buds in the hedgerows were exchanged for the fullblown blossoms of the wayfaring-tree, t

whose double circle of white stars, regular as if cut with a stamp, forms so beautiful a cluster of flowerets, and contrasts so gaily with the deep pink of the wild rose, and the pale, but graceful garlands of the woodbine; the meadows had, indeed, lost their flowery glory, and were covered partly with rich swathes of new-cut grass, and partly with large haycocks, dappling the foreground with such depth and variety of light and shadow; but the river's edge was gay as a garden with flags and waterlilies, and the pendent branches of the delicate snowflake, the most elegant of aquatic plants; and Laurette's garden itself, one bright bed of pinks, and roses, and honeysuckles, and berry-bushes, with their rich transparent fruit, might almost have vied in colour and fragrance with that of her mistress. The change was not in the place, but in the inhabitants.

Adam was employed in landing a net full of fish, perch, roach, and dace, such a haul as ought to have put any fisherman into good humour, but which certainly had had no such effect on the present occasion. He looked as black as a thundercloud, swore at the poor fish as he tossed them on the bank, called Ned a lubber, and when, in a fit of absence, he from mere habit resumed his patriotic ditty, shouted "Britons never will be slaves" with such a scowl at his poor foreign wife, that it could only be interpreted into a note of defiance. She, on her side, was still working at her cottage-door, or rather sitting there listlessly with her work (a checked shirt of her churlish husband's) in her lap, her head drooping, and the gay air of "C'est l'amour," exchanged for a plaintive romance, which ran, as well as I could catch it, something in this fashion:

Celui qui sut toucher mon cœur,
Jurait d'aimer toute la vie,
Mais, helas! c'était un trompeur,
Celui qui sut toucher mon cœur.,

S'il abjurait cruelle erreur,
S'il revenait à son amie,
Ah! toujours il serait vainqueur,
S'il abjurait cruelle erreur.

And when the romance was done, which might have touched Adam's heart, if he could but have understood it, poor Laurette sighed amain, took up the checked shirt, and seemed likely to cry; Neptune looked doleful, as one who comprehended that something was the matter, but could not rightly understand what; and Ned was in the dumps. A dreary change had

come over the whole family, of which the cause was not known to me for some time afterwards :-Adam was jealous.

The cause of this jealousy was no other than the quondam candidate for the fisherman's favour, his prime aversion, Nanny Sims.

This Nanny Sims was, as I have said, a washerwoman, and Adam's next neighbour, she tenanting a cottage and orchard on the same side of the river, but concealed from observation by the romantic and precipitous bank which formed so picturesque a background to Laurette's pretty dwelling. In person, Nanny was as strong a contrast to the light and graceful Frenchwoman as could well be imagined; she being short and stout, and blowsy and frowsy, realizing exactly, as to form, Lord Byron's expression, "a dumpy woman," and accompanying it with all the dowdiness and slovenliness proper to her station. Never was even washerwoman more untidy. A cap all rags, from which the hair came straggling in elf-locks over a face which generally looked red-hot, surmounted by an old bonnet, originally black, now rusty, and so twisted into crooks and bends that its pristine shape was unguessable; a coloured cotton handkerchief pinned over a short-sleeved, open, stuff gown, and three or four aprons, each wet through, tied one above another, black stockings, man's shoes, and pattens higher and noisier than ever pattens were, completed her apparel.

Her habits were such as suited her attire and her condition. An industrious woman, it must be confessed, was Nanny Sims. Give her green tea, and strong beer and gin at discretion, and she would wash the four-and-twenty hours round, only abstracting an hour apiece for her two breakfasts, ditto ditto for her two luncheons, two hours for her dinner, one for her afternoon's tea, and another for supper. And then she would begin again, and dry, and starch, and mangle, and iron, without let or pause, save those demanded by the abovementioned refections. Give her gin enough, and she never seemed to require the gentle refreshment called sleep. Sancho's fine ejaculation, "Blessed is the man that invented sleep!" with which most mortals have so entire a sympathy, would have been thrown away upon Nanny Sims. The discoverer of the still would have been the fitter object of her benediction. Gin, sheer gin, was to her what ale was to Bo

niface; and she throve upon it. Never was woman so invulnerable to disease. Hot water was her element, and she would go seething and steaming from the washtub, reeking and dripping from top to toe, into the keenest north-east wind, without taking more harm than the wet sheets and tablecloths which went through her hands. They dried, and so did she; and to all feeling of inconvenience that parboiled and soddened flesh seemed as inaccessible as the linen.

A hardworking woman was Nanny but the part of her that worked hardest was her tongue. Benedick's speech to Beatrice, "I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer," gives but a faint notion of the activity of that member in the mouth of our laundress. If ever mechanical contrivance had approached half so nearly to the perpetual motion, the inventor would have considered the problem as solved, and would have proclaimed the discovery accordingly. It was one incessant wag. Of course, the tongue was a washerwoman's tongue, and the chatter such as might suit the accompaniments of the wash-tub and the ginbottle, not forgetting that important accessory to scandal in higher walks of life, the tea-table. The pendulum vibrated through every degree and point of gossiping, from the most innocent matter-of-fact, to the most malicious slander, and was the more mischievous, as being employed to assist the laundry-maid in several families, as well as taking in washing at home, her powers of collecting and diffusing false reports were by no means inconsiderable. She was the general tale-bearer of the parish, and scattered dissension as the eastwind scatters the thistle-down, sowing the evil seed in all directions. What added to the danger of her lies was, that they were generally interwoven with some slender and trivial thread of truth, which gave something like the colour of fact to her narrative, and that her legends were generally delivered in a careless undesigning style, as if she spoke from the pure love of talking, and did not care whether you believed her or not, which had a strong, but unconscious effect on the credulity of her auditors. Perhaps, to a certain extent, she might be innocent of ill-intention, and might not, on common occasions, mean to do harm by her evil-speaking; but, in the case of Laurette, I can hardly acquit her of malice. She hated her for all manner

of causes: as her next neighbour; as a Frenchwoman; as pretty; as young; as fine; as the favourite of Mrs. Talbot; and last, and worst, as the wife of Adam Stokes, and she omitted no opportunity of giving vent to her spite.

First, she said she was idle; then, that she was proud; then, that she was sluttish; then, that she was extravagant; then that she was vain; then, that she gorged; then, that she wore a wig; then, that she was by no means so young as she wished to be thought; and then, that she was ugly. These shafts fell wide of the mark. People had only to look at the pretty, smiling Laurette, and at her neat cottage, and they were disproved at a glance. At last, Nanny, over the wash-tub at the Park, gave out that Laurette was coquettish; and that she would have Master Adam look about him; that honest English husbands who married French wives, and young wives, and pretty wives into the bargain, had need to look about them; that she, for her part, was very sorry for her worthy neighbour-but, that folks who lived near, saw more than other folks thought for, and then Nanny sighed and held her tongue. Nanny's holding her tongue produced a wonderful sensation in the Park laundry; such an event had never been heard of before; it was thought that the cause of her speechlessness must be something most portentous and strange, and questions were raised upon her from all quarters.

For an incredible space of time (at least two minutes) Nanny maintained a resolute silence, shook her head, and said nothing. At last, in pure confidence, she disclosed to five women, the laundry-maid, the dairy-maid, two housemaids, and another char-woman, the important fact; that it was not for nothing that Gilbert carried a basket every day from Mrs. Talbot to Laurette; that her husband, poor man, had not found it out yet, but that, doubtless, his eyes would be open some day or other; that she did not blame Gilbert so much, poor fellow, the chief advances being made by the foreign madam, who had said to her, in her jargon, that she should be dead if the basket did not come every day, meaning him, no doubt; that all the world would see what would come of it. Then, recommending secrecy, which all parties promised, Nanny put on her shawl, and her pattens, and trudged home; and before night the whole house knew of it, and before the next day the whole pa